How do I send an Excel spreadsheet by email?

If you are like many people these days, you probably use Microsoft Office on Windows or macOS at home, but also have access to it through cloud storage services such as Google Drive and OneDrive. And if that's true then there is one thing we know for sure — you need to be able to share spreadsheets with other users in order to get real-life stuff done!

The problem with sharing spreadsheets using traditional methods (iCloud folders) is that they don't scale well when you want to collaborate on multiple sheets with more than one person and want to keep things neat and tidy. There are times where you might even prefer not having all those extra documents cluttering up iCloud.

Thankfully, there are several ways you can easily share Excel files without uploading them to cloud storage first. In this article, we will cover some easy tricks you can perform right from within Word, PowerPoint or Excel itself so that when you're sending out reports via email, no one has to wonder whether their recipient actually got what was sent. We'll start off with our most common question — "how do I attach a sheet to an email?"

How do I attach a sheet to an email?

In case you've never been taught before, here is the basic method for attaching sheets to emails. First, select the file(s) you wish to attach and click File"Export"XLSM. This will open up a new window containing three tabs: Data, View and Form Layout. Clicking onto either tab opens up additional options. The data tab contains information about which cells contain formulas whereas the view tab shows previews of each individual worksheet. Finally, clicking form layout gives you two different ways to add the document to an outgoing message. You can drag the entire document over to the New Message icon located at the upper left corner of the screen. Alternatively, just double-click the Create Email button.

Once everything is set, hit Send/Compose. If you would rather save time while composing your email instead, just choose Insert"Object type:"Spreadsheet and follow the same steps mentioned above. When prompted, pick XLSM as the format. Once again, make sure to send the resulting attachment as an actual Excel (.xlsm) file. Otherwise, the recipients won't see anything except some weird error message saying the following: "[object] cannot be opened."

This process only applies to text-based messages because images aren't supported yet. However, this isn't much of a big deal since attachments inside emails already come with alternative content. What happens when someone gets an image in their inbox? They simply download said image instead.

As far as compatibility goes, this technique should work fine across platforms, although sometimes formatting may become slightly messed up depending on who receives the email. For example, if you try to embed YouTube videos in a report, the preview could end up being cut short due to character limitations. As always, test your final draft extensively ahead of time to ensure that everything looks good.

How do I insert an Excel spreadsheet into the body of an email?

Now let's say you have a long list of items that require signatures — maybe you run a business — and that list keeps growing longer every day. Instead of manually typing out all of those names, why not automate the whole thing? That way you can create a master signature template once and apply it to dozens of incoming emails. To begin, go back to the previous section and head straight to the second tab labeled View. Here you'll notice four icons along the top row: Home, Page Setup, Quick Parts, and Object Navigator. Select the last option called Object Navigator. Now, you'll see another little arrow next to the words “New Document”. Drag and drop your document onto that spot and release your finger. A small menu bar will pop up showing various actions you can take, but for now, press F4. It'll bring up a dialog box titled Properties. Switch to the Customize Ribbon area and find the Controls category. Next, scroll down until you see the Text group and expand it. Then look towards the bottom of the page and you'll see Find Fields. Press Enter and a search field will appear. Type in the name of the column you'd like to display below your signature. Hit Search and voilà! Your chosen fields should automatically populate themselves.

Keep in mind that if you plan on doing something similar with pictures or charts, you will have to import them separately as shown previously. Also note that the aforementioned trick doesn't work if you were planning on adding video links.

How do I insert a spreadsheet into an Outlook email?

For anyone unfamiliar with Outlook, it is important to understand that this program does support importing and exporting files natively. So technically speaking, you shouldn't encounter any problems when trying to accomplish tasks like inserting Excel docs into Outlook emails. All you need to do is navigate to File"Open"Recent Documents and then locate the relevant.xlsm file. After opening it, go to Edit"Attachments"Choose Attachment. From there, you can proceed with selecting the sheet you want to include and hitting OK. Keep in mind that your recipient will receive whatever kind of media you included in the original email, regardless of what type it is. Therefore, if you decide to upload a chart, picture, audio recording etc., then recipients will still be presented with the usual options available in their respective mail clients.

How do I attach a spreadsheet to Gmail?

To attach a spreadsheet to an email in Gmail, first log into your account and visit Settings. Go to Labs and enable Smart Compose. You can now fire off a new message whenever you write a sentence starting with the word spreadsheet. Simply replace [spreadsheet] with the desired term. To demonstrate, let's say you wanted to email your boss a sales report. Whenever you typed in numbers, Gmail would automatically assume that you meant to reference a table. So what you would do is write something like $1 million dollars sold, and Gmail would turn it into 1 million dollars sold. Pretty nifty huh?

When creating a new message, click Add Labels and give yourself a label specifically designed for spreadsheets. By default, Gmail labels show up underneath the subject line. Just remember that if you ever forget to check the label, you can hover over the subject line to reveal the hidden labels. If you want to remove certain ones, just delete them altogether.

While you are logged into Gmail, you can also edit the settings under General. Scroll down until you reach the part labelled Default responses. Under this heading, enter values for both HTML and Plaintext. Make sure to change the former to Yes. Lastly, go to Filters and Blocked Addresses. Choose Create a filter based on existing labels and mark the checkbox beside Receive mails matching pattern *.doc. Then hit Save Changes and you are pretty much finished.

Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments.

It's easy enough sending an email from the desktop version of Microsoft Office -- just click on "File" then select "Send Email." But what if you want to use something other than Office like Apple Mail or Google Chrome?

Fortunately there are many ways that you can easily open up an Excel file via email using these popular browsers and clients. In this article we'll show you several different methods for sharing Excel spreadsheets when you're out of the office. Whether it's a single user working at home or a group collaborating together, everyone should have access to their own personal folder filled with all those important Excel sheets.

Note: If you're not sure where to find the Save icon next to each cell (it looks like an arrow coming out of one), right-click anywhere within the grid of cells. A menu will pop up giving you options to save as.xlsx or.csv. Clicking on either option saves the data into a new XLSX (.xls) or CSV (.txt) format respectively.

How do I share an Excel File with someone else?

If you need to share an Excel file with another person while you're away from the computer, here is how to do so using two common webmail services: Outlook and Gmail.

To begin, download the latest versions of both Windows Live Mail and Hotmail/Windows Mail. You may also see them listed under Eudora, AOL, Yahoo! Mail, etc... Once downloaded, launch whichever program you chose to view your mail. To get started, compose an outgoing message containing the recipient’s name and address along with a subject line. Then simply drag the.xlxs file onto your incoming messages window. This action automatically opens the document after which you can continue typing your intended message. When finished hit Send. That’s it – now they’ll receive the attachment through whatever service they choose.

You could always try opening up the attached file directly within the browser itself. However, doing so requires having the file saved locally first before being opened in the browser. So let's say you were trying to send an excel report to yourself but hadn't yet saved the file. It would look something like this:

So go ahead and create a folder called My Documents inside My Computer, then navigate to wherever you've stored the actual file. Right-Click on the file and select “Open With…” followed by “Choose Another App.” Select Microsoft Word and hit Next. After some more dialogue boxes, Word will load up your.xls file ready to type anything you'd like. Hit Finish and voila - now you can share your documents and spreadsheets however you please.

Another way around doing this is using a cloud storage provider such as Dropbox. Simply upload the file to your account, then copy over its link. Now whenever you want to send yourself an Excel file just head to http://dl.dropbox.com/u/xxxxxx/file.xls and paste the copied URL into your favorite web page. The document will instantly appear. Easy peasy.

Here's a quick tip regarding downloading files from Dropbox. Instead of clicking on the Download button located right below the file title, hold down Control and hover over it until the mouse cursor turns into an ellipse. Upon releasing, the file downloads immediately.

Want even more ideas about how to get around with sending Excel files using various programs? Check out our previous tutorial How Do I Share An Excel Without Editing.

Can an Excel sheet be shared by multiple users?

Yes, absolutely. Here's how to do so using Apple Mail and Gmail.

Create a new folder called Shared Files inside your Users' Home Folder. Create another folder inside this folder called SpreadsheetFiles. From here, anyone who has permission to enter information into the system can add their own individual spreadsheet(s). For example if John Doe wants to contribute his own budget numbers to the project, he should make a separate Excel spreadsheet titled Budget Numbers. He can then place copies of his budgets into the appropriate folders.

Now if Jane Smith wants to modify her husband's spreadsheet, she only needs to double-click on Budget Numbers and edit the contents. She doesn't need to know where the original file resides because Bob won't mind since it was created by someone above him. And best of all, no one else will ever be able to change the content unless they acquire additional permissions.

This method allows for multiple people to collaborate simultaneously, allowing them to input their respective changes without worrying about overwriting others'.  Just remember to keep track of who made what changes. Otherwise things might become very confusing.

For instance, in my example above, Bob Smith might end up making changes to his wife's spreadsheet instead of his own. Or maybe Sally Jones added extra rows to her son's spreadsheet last week. Whatever the case, keeping records of modifications helps avoid confusion later.

How do you share a Excel without editing?

There's actually a built-in function that does exactly what you asked us to do. Go to Insert -> Quick Parts -> Text Boxes. A little box will appear asking you to pick a shape and color scheme for your text area. Choose the default blue square. Type in the following code: =Sheet("[spreadsheet path]") and press Enter. Your desired spreadsheet will appear in the editor pane. Copy this formula and paste it somewhere inside your spreadsheet. This process creates a unique ID number for every spreadsheet you insert into future similar formulas.

Next, repeat step 2 again. Paste this time using the newly generated ID#. Again, copy and paste the formula elsewhere in your document. Repeat this cycle until you reach the bottom of your spreadsheet. Don't worry too much about the exact location of the pasted formulae. We'll come back to that later.

Afterwards, all you have left to do is replace the [spreadsheet path] part of the equation with the full pathname to your current spreadsheet. Make sure you don't include quotation marks (""). Everything outside of quotations becomes a dynamic reference to the specific spreadsheet you wish to import. For instance : Sheet1 will refer to your active spreadsheet.

Finally, copy everything once again and paste it into your main document. Whenever you bring up this formula in the future, it will pull up your most recent spreadsheet. Try running a few tests with this technique. Feel free to experiment with changing the shapes and colors to suit your preference.

The biggest advantage of this approach is that it takes care of copying and pasting for you. Also, anytime you run into trouble importing a certain file, feel free to check the documentation online for instructions. There are plenty of tutorials available on YouTube if you search for 'Excel Tutorial.'

How do I share a worksheet in a workbook?

In order to share a whole workbook rather than just a single sheet, follow these steps:

Save your entire document as a ZIP archive.

Extract the zip file and extract the Workbooks folder.

Copy the entire extracted workbook folder and paste it into your Shared Folders inside your User Account's Home Directory.

Right-click on the workbook and select Properties. Scroll down to the Customize Ribbon section and select Apply All Sorts Of Fun.

A dialog box will pop up asking you to customize your ribbon. Tick off the tabs you desire and hit OK.

Voila! Now you can share the same workbook with anyone else. They can rename and delete worksheets individually. Just give them permission to update the workbook.

Have you tried any of these tips and tricks? Tell us about your experiences in the comments section below.

You're probably familiar with attaching documents like Word or PowerPoint presentations in emails. But what about sending spreadsheets too? Don't worry -- it's just as easy! You'll see that there are several ways you can attach an Excel file to an email message (including forwarding one), but first let’s take a look at some useful methods.  Let's say you have an important spreadsheet on hand and want to share it with another person via email. Here are three different approaches you might use.

Note: We've covered this topic before, so be sure to read our guide on How Do I Send An Email With Attachments In Microsoft Office 2007 Before continuing further. If you need more information, check out our tips on how to send attachments from your iPhone/iPad when using iOS 5 Mail.

How do you send an Excel spreadsheet into the body of an email?

If you’re already composing an email in Windows Live Mail, then simply select File " Open & Print... As attachment from the menu bar. This will open up a new window where you can choose which document you would like to print. Just make sure to pick Create PDF instead if you don’t want the original formatting preserved. After clicking OK, click Save To.... Then enter something descriptive such as “Excel Spreadsheet” under Filename. Finally, hit Save. The.xlsx extension should appear right below the filename box after saving. Now all you have left is waiting for the other party to receive the attached file. They may not know exactly what kind of document they received until they open it though. So keep this tip handy for those times when people aren't tech-savvy.

For example, if you wanted to send a text document to somebody who uses Google Docs, you could save your document as an HTML file and upload it through their web interface. However, if they were unfamiliar with HTML, they wouldn't realize that's what they got. Instead, try converting it to XLSX format and send it over via email.

Or maybe you just prefer working with the native application. If that's the case, here’s how to attach an excel file to outlook mail messages. First, create a brand new letter template. Next go back to the ribbon, find the Insert tab and scroll down until you reach Table Tools. Click the dropdown arrow next to Tables and select Convert From. A new window will pop up asking you to name the table. Name it whatever way you'd like and press ok. It shouldn’t take long now. Once done, doubleclick on the table design itself and it will convert into a single cell wide column. That means you can copy paste rows within each cell rather than copying entire cells themselves. Select Paste Special " Values only and it should give you no trouble whatsoever.

When pasting data, you may notice Excel adds extra spaces between certain columns. To remove these, highlight the row containing the problem, hold shift while selecting everything above it and pressing delete. Repeat until no longer needed.

And yes, you can even insert images and charts into tables. For instance, if you wanted to add a pie chart to a table, you could follow steps 1 - 4 mentioned earlier. When creating your chart, however, change Chart Type to either Bar or Pie. Right click anywhere inside the chart area and select Format Picture Selection... Choose Embed Options... And finally, select Yes to include legend and tick off Automatically determine fields option. Hit Ok. Now drag it onto your newly created table. Doubleclicking on the image gives you options for sizing and positioning.

Another great tip we found was adding comments to individual cells. Hold ctrl + shift while highlighting problematic cells and hitting comment. This lets you easily identify them later on. Also, if you happen to have multiple sheets in the same workbook, you can also merge them together. Simply navigate to Home > Sheet tabs, then highlight the ones you wish to combine. Press Ctrl+J to Merge Cells.

Finally, if you ever come across a situation wherein you need to send an Excel sheet to someone without having to install anything yourself, you could always download a few free third-party programs. Two popular choices are iWorks Suite ($99) or eSheet Mobile Report Writer [Broken URL Removed] (free). Both solutions offer the ability to export spreadsheets to various formats, which makes sharing much easier.

How do I forward an Excel spreadsheet?

There are many reasons why you might want to forward an Excel spreadsheet. Perhaps you’ve sent it to clients, colleagues, friends, etc., and didn’t expect them to get overwhelmed with tons of numbers. Or perhaps you used the tools described previously and realized you made a mistake somewhere along the line. Whatever the reason, here’s how you can forward an Excel document via email.

First, open up whichever program you plan to send it to. Let’s assume you’re still writing emails in WLMail. Go ahead and compose your message. At the bottom, you’ll see two icons. One looks like a paperclip and the second resembles a folder. Hover over the latter and you’ll see a small envelope icon pop up. Drag your desired Excel file into this window. Your recipient should automatically detect it once its been uploaded. Alternatively, you can also drag it over the top of the message preview window. Either way works fine.

Once you release the mouse button, the file won’t immediately appear. To speed things up, head to Ribbon " Review " Quick Parts " More Commands. On the resulting page, type “ooxml” in the search field. Highlight the OOXML / MSOffice Compatibility Layer item and press Enter. Again, nothing should happen initially. Keep holding alt until the cursor turns into a plus sign (+). Release both buttons and voila!

The forwarded version will now show up in your recipients inbox. Be aware that it's technically called a temporary view because it expires upon receiving the final confirmation. Unfortunately, you cannot permanently embed it into the message since it belongs to Microsoft.

Here’s a bonus tip: sometimes you may want to include formulas in your Excel spreadsheets. If you have lots of calculations going on, doing so could cause performance issues. Luckily, you can actually disable the embedded formula feature altogether. All you have to do is hover over a specific cell, then click the little pencil icon beside the address bar. Uncheck Enable calculation and you should get rid of any unwanted effects.

How do I email an Excel spreadsheet directly?

This section is pretty straightforward. Head straight to File " Browse... By Kind... And browse to the location of your spreadsheet. Once selected, you’ll see a bunch of folders pop up. Amongst them should be an Excel 97 Workbooks subfolder. Within this folder lies the actual document. Whenever opening the file, you’ll see a blue screen saying that it’s protected. This prevents unauthorized users from accessing sensitive details.

To overcome this issue, go to View " Protect Document. Make sure to uncheck Prevent editing. Once completed, you’ll be able to edit the contents freely. There’s also the possibility of changing protection levels later on. While viewing your file, you may notice that whenever you move your mouse towards the title bar, the pointer becomes disabled. This happens because the document has security settings turned on.

In order to bypass this obstacle, visit Ribbon " Developer Tab " Design Mode. Under Protection Settings, turn Off Editing Controls. Now you can continue moving around.

A word of warning: anyone who opens the file will have full access to every detail imaginable. Therefore, be careful not to accidentally expose confidential information.

How do I send a spreadsheet to someone?

As discussed previously, spreadingsheets.com offers a convenient solution whereby you can send a file to others without installing anything on their computers. What’s unique about this website is that it allows you to upload files of virtually unlimited size. Although it does require registration, it doesn’t cost a dime and comes with all sorts of features.

All you have to do is log in, locate your desired file, and copy its link. Then, click Upload. Upon completion, you’ll be given a direct link to the file. Copy this code and send it to whoever needs it. Their browser should recognize it just like normal links.

Alternatively, you can also utilize services such as Dropbox. Since it’s cloud based, you can upload large spreadsheets and allow recipients to download it instantly. Note that you must set up shared folders beforehand.

Now that you’ve mastered the basics, why stop here?! Why not learn advanced topics such as VBA programming?